


Borrowed Time

by Lapras



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Inception Reverse Big Bang Challenge 2015, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 02:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5231336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lapras/pseuds/Lapras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inception Reverse Bang Piece inspired by pic from Lauand http://lauand.livejournal.com/123815.html<br/>Arthur must come to terms with what inception has done to him mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borrowed Time

Arthur keeps the PASIV. He knows he will never see Cobb again.

As he gathers his bag he hears, “Catch.”

He turns and snatches something small out of the air.

“You should keep a better eye on that,” Eames says, smug.

Arthur grips the die in his fist. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

Eames smiles. “I’ll see you around, Arthur.”

“You don’t even know my last name.”

Eames turns away, “You can borrow mine.”

 

The first thing Arthur does with his share is check into a hotel and bar the door to his room. He hooks himself up and builds the dream.

The apartment: Studio. Every space in order. Living room with u-couch surrounding the unused entertainment system. Door to the bathroom slightly ajar, as he left it, so he can see inside to the small window and the glass doors of the shower. His steps are light as he approaches the door to the bedroom, slightly ajar, _not_ as he left it.

He enters silently. Everything seems to be in order. The staircase leading up to his loft bed is clean. The space below the stairs is hollowed out for books and journals. There are no gaps, no flipped spines, nothing. His bed is made, with the railings taken off in case he needs to fall off the side to wake himself.

The desk in the space underneath his bed remains the same, with the small lamp craning the graph paper he has set up, his last drawing of a half finished home still incomplete. The light is on, though, and down in the corner of the paper, a word has been scrawled.

Arthur sits, takes a pencil, and runs a finger across the word. Some of the graphite sticks to his forefinger, darkening it. Then he erases it.

He moves to side of the room where the print of the Alhambra’s plan hangs. He imagines the knife in his hand and once he feels the weight of it, he slashes through the print, revealing the safe behind. Quickly, always as if someone is watching, he enters the combination and pops it open. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his Moleskine, and sets it inside.

The safe closes and he spins the lock.

 

Arthur takes the odd job every once in a while, just to be in motion. Quick and easy work, the kind he can do without thinking. The jobs he can’t possibly mess up.

Because he did mess up.

For the first time in his life, Arthur put his team in danger. It’s his fault that Saito went down there. That man lived a lifetime locked up in his own brain.

Arthur can’t – won’t – even imagine.

When he completes a job, he severs all ties and moves on to the next city, the next hotel, and the next dive into his mind.

Every time he comes home to the apartment, something is amiss: The bedroom door is ajar, and the light is on. The word is there, freshly scrawled. The graphite comes off on his hands and then he erases the word.

He checks the safe. The notebook is still there.

 

Someone approaches him for a job during his stint in Mexico City. An impressive-looking woman with an impressive-looking offer. She has heard of Arthur and his fine work. She knows he worked with many notable friends and she has a proposition. She thinks he can do the impossible: Inception.

Arthur stands from the table in the café. “It’s not possible.”

“But if you had the right team?” she ventures.

He puts money on the table and thanks her for her time. He leaves Mexico that night. Saito took great care to keep their mission quiet. It appears he succeeded.

Arthur doesn’t sleep until he arrives in the next place and completes the ritual: Barred hotel room door, creation of the apartment. He expects the door to be open. He does not expect the books thrown across the room, or the word scrawled across the entire page instead of in its little corner.

Arthur puts the books back and tears the sheet of paper from the clips holding it down, crumpling the sketches of the museum he had been working on. He checks the safe with shaking hands, but the notebook is still there.

Standing in the room, he tosses the die into the air.

 

The flight to Paris is long, but he stays awake for it. Sleep is a secret to be kept for dark locked rooms. Instead, he listens to music, slowly turning up the volume until he can’t hear himself think.

He checks into a boutique hotel and writes a new name in the guest book.

Ariadne is easy to find. She returned to the College after the job. He waits for her outside of Miles’ office, taking care to avoid the man himself. When she comes down the steps, alone as he suspected, she doesn’t seem all that surprised to see him.

“I can’t even make you flinch?” he asks.

She smiles. “Sorry to disappoint. But I’ve been inside your head. I knew you’d be back eventually.”

“Let me buy you coffee,” he says.

“You’re going to have to do better than coffee,” she says and then laughs. “Come on.”

Arthur feels a knot slowly coming undone.

“How have you been?” he asks.

She shrugs. “I feel like I have PTSD.”

His gaze drops.

“I can’t sleep around other people, you know?”

“I know,” he says.

“And yet…all I want to do is go back. I want to create again. I miss that feeling, like I was completely untethered.”

“Nothing else like it,” he says, remembering their conversation, that day she came back to the workspace.

“I don’t blame you,” she says at last. “If it’s anyone’s fault that things got complicated, it’s Cobb.”

“I know that, but—”

“Don’t, Arthur. Don’t beat yourself up. We did the impossible. We got Cobb home.”

Arthur nods. Sometimes he forgets whose job it really was.

“Do you want to go back one more time?” he asks her.

“Desperately,” she says with wry smile. “But I can’t. I think it would only mess me up more.”

Arthur understands. He gives her his number. “If you ever want to have coffee again. Talk about paradoxes.”

She takes the paper and pockets it. “Thanks for checking up on me.”

But Arthur is the one who needed this.

“No one else has visited, have they?” he asks. “Not even Eames?”

She shakes her head. “He pretty much disappeared as far as I know.”

Arthur puts his hand into his pockets and feels the die. “Right.”

“But maybe he’d come out of hiding for you,” she says. “If you’re going to check up on all of us. I know you guys have a history.”

History. What a terrible thing to have.

 

He spends that night before his flight driving on a rented motorcycle through the city streets. He weaves in and out of traffic, people whipping by in a blur. His head is full to bursting. Ariadne is at least okay. Scarred perhaps, but okay. Moving on.

Why can’t Arthur do the same?

It’s been a while since he’s felt the weight of another person on the back of his bike. Driving under street lamps and past shops open late, he wonders again what it would feel like to share someone’s mind. The proper mind, that is. One that understands his.

When he checks in on his dream that night, the destruction has moved to the kitchen. Glasses are shattered on the ground and utensils spilt across the wood floors. The sink is on and overflowing. The windows are all open.

His bedroom is a mess of papers. All his drawings are scattered. The word is painted across the floor.

He stands in the middle of the room and closes his eyes, imagining the room back in order. When he opens his eyes, everything is moving back to its proper place. The word is erasing itself.

 

Saito is easy to find. Arthur doesn’t approach him, he merely watches from a distance, noting his behavior. There is, without a doubt, a new, careful quality to the way he moves, as if he remembers the fragility of old age.

His company is thriving.

While he is there, Arthur stops for dinner in a small shop. He eats with his back to the door, isolated in a small corner. He takes out a new notebook and scrawls the word on the top of the page, just to see how it feels.

No one can ever know.

 

Fischer is a quieter man.

He seems to consider his words more carefully. And he sleeps behind locked doors.

It’s hot in Sydney. Arthur rolls up his sleeves and unbuttons his shirt. Standing on the balcony of the hotel, the city sprawls beneath him. He could recreate each building in his mind if he wanted. He looks towards the famous opera house and pictures the voices within, reverberating off the walls and through his brain. He imagines sitting beside someone, and can almost hear his small talk.

“Bet you could sing better.”

Arthur turns away.

After each of these encounters, Arthur comes to his dreams to find wreckage. Rot sets into the wood, and mold and dirt are spreading across the walls. He sees the word everywhere.

“I am putting this behind me,” he tells the room.

The safe is the only intact thing in the apartment.

 

Sometimes when Arthur is so tired but cannot sleep, he walks the line between conscious and subconscious. He feels wind on his face and hands on his back and sun on his skin.

Then he snaps awake and checks the die.

He puts his head in his hands. He can almost feel how warped his mind has become.

 

Cobb is next on the list. Arthur doesn’t want to disturb his newfound peace. He merely needs to see the man in his own home. He needs to see that some good came of this.

For three days, Arthur stays nearby and watches the routine. He watches Cobb waiting for his kids to come home on the bus. He can see the unbridled joy. The barely contained sorrow.

On the last day, Cobb sees him. Arthur doesn’t look away. Cobb nods once.

Arthur nods back.

Everything is fine. Surely he can rest now.

 

Arthur hooks himself up once again. His apartment is dark, water stained, rotten, hellish. He punches the wall, ripping a hole right through it. When he enters his room, oddly, it is neat and clean and bright.

There is someone sitting at his desk.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Arthur says.

Eames spins around to face him, pencil in hand. “Just thought I’d stop by. You haven’t checked up on me, so I came to you.”

“You’re hiding. I can’t exactly come knocking.”

“And now you’re talking to yourself,” Eames says. “Very healthy.”

Arthur shuts the door to the room, blocking out the rot. He eyes the print. It’s in its same spot.

“Don’t worry,” Eames says. “Your precious notebook is still there.”

Eames stands. There is a gun in his hand.

“Careful with that,” Arthur says.

“Not ready to wake up?”

Arthur shakes his head. “I need to fix my head. I can’t leave it like this.”

“Why do you think this is happening?” Eames gestures to the other room with the gun.

Arthur holds his hands up in surrender. “I just need to make sure my mistake didn’t cost too much for the others.”

“Why did you make a mistake?” Eames asks.

Arthur feels warm, as if he has curled up in a sunspot. Through the window he sees a familiar place. He closes his eyes.

“Too scared to look backwards?” Eames asks.

“Memories are dangerous,” he replies. “I could lose myself.”

“You already have.”

Arthur feels the gun on his head. His eyes open and Eames is an arms-length away.

“Stop running,” Eames says. “Or the memories will track you down.”

Eames presses the gun against Arthur's head until he backs up into the door. Eames slowly lowers the gun, the barrel tracing down Arthur's neck and then his chest. When it clinks against his belt buckle, Eames pulls it away. Arthur releases the breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“It’s time you left,” Arthur says.

Eames grabs Arthur’s tie and wraps it around his hand, pulling him closer. Arthur automatically grabs at Eames’s arms.

“I could say the same to you,” he says.

Arthur glares. “This is my mind. Get out.”

“If it’s yours, why can’t you control it?”

Arthur wakes up. His phone is ringing. It’s a number he doesn’t recognize. He answers immediately.

“Arthur, it’s Ariadne.”

“What’s wrong?” Arthur asks, shooting up out of bed.

“I was right,” she says. “He came out of hiding.”

Arthur freezes. “You saw him?”

“He came to find me. He asked me if I’d seen _you_. Said you used his name to check into a hotel here. I guess he’s been looking for you.”

Arthur shakes his head. “Was he mad?”

“He was Eames,” she says. “Whatever that means to you.”

“Thanks for the call. If you see him again, tell him I have one more name on my list before I get to him.”

 

Yusuf hasn’t gone anywhere. He stills runs his lab in Mombasa, now slightly more impressive. He looks nervous to see Arthur turn up in his office.

“Arthur,” he says, eyebrows knit. “Didn’t … think I’d ever see you.”

“Don’t worry,” Arthur says. “I’m not here to kill you.”

Yusuf picks a cat up off his chair and sits. “I’m not quite sure I believe you.”

“Fair enough.” Arthur leans against a cabinet, glass bottles clinking behind him. “Maybe I’m a little angry.”

Yusuf laughs, nervous. “I did my part. I didn’t mess up. Except for the whole rain thing. That was an accident.”

“You dropped us too early.”

“I did what I had to do,” he counters. “You’re the one who got Saito shot.”

Arthur clenches his fists. He keeps his face blank, though.

“I’m sorry, this isn’t why I came here,” he says.

“Then why did you come here?”

Arthur swallows, his mouth going dry. “Have you told anyone about what we did?”

Yusuf shakes his head. “I don’t think anyone would believe me anyway. It’s not supposed to be possible. And we barely made it out of there. I don’t feel like reliving it. I do enough of that in my own dreams.”

“Do you ever put yourself under?” Arthur asks.

“No,” Yusuf says. “Do you?”

Arthur doesn’t say anything. They remain silent for a time, and Arthur swipes a finger across the dusty cabinet. He slides it against his thumb.

“Was the money worth it?”

Yusuf drums his fingers on his desk. “Not really. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“I should get going,” Arthur pushes off the cabinet and sets the bottles shaking again, like wind chimes. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“If it’s all the same, I think it’s better for my well-being if I don’t see you again.”

“Understood,” Arthur says.

 

He knows it's a risk, walking around here, but he is too tempted by the smell of the city. Even though he sticks out like a sore thumb, he doesn't change his clothes. He has grown too comfortable with this look. Maybe he is hoping to be recognized. Maybe around the corner of a vendor he will see a familiar bulk or catch the scent of cologne. He will see an egregious shirt and tan jacket and be asked to play a game of poker.

Arthur shakes his head. He needs to check up on his mind. Though he imagines the price on Cobb's head is forgotten, he doesn't want to tempt Cobol Engineering into action.

He flees that night, skipping the ritual and heading for New York. He is so tired when he gets there, he writes “Eames” again in the guest book and goes to the elevator. He leans against the wall, his bag sagging on his shoulders, his eyelids drooping. He sees a bright place and a lurid thief. He’s in a hotel elevator with a sleeping man, trusted to his care. He hasn't truly rested without the PASIV in days, but he needs to see it again. He hooks himself up and feels the somnacin flow through his veins, making his arm heavy. He falls, and wakes horizontal. He is in the bed and the forger is above him.

Arthur can’t roll off the side of the bed, because Eames is sitting between him and the edge. Instead, Arthur imagines a gun in his hand. But before he can take aim, Eames turns to him and grabs Arthur’s arms, pinning him down against the mattress with his weight.

“Do you think it’s just going to fix itself?” he asks.

Arthur struggles against his hold, but it’s useless. He knows it. He sags in the forger’s grip.

“I thought that if I made sure everyone was okay, I would be okay.”

“You’re an idiot,” Eames says.

Arthur looks towards the safe. “I locked you away. You’re just a name in my notebook. How did you get out?”

Eames shakes his head. “You’ve been dragging me around with you everywhere.”

Arthur meets Eames gaze. It’s almost too much. “You’re not real.”

“What is real anymore for you, Arthur? Tell me what’s real. If I’m not here, then why do you feel the way you do?”

Arthur grits his teeth as Eames pins his arms against the wall. “Are your emotions real in a dream?”

“Let me go,” Arthur says.

Eames leans closer. “ _You_ let _me_ go.”

Their foreheads touch.

“I can’t,” Arthur says, eyes shut tight. “You did this to me.”

The weight vanishes and Arthur opens his eyes to find an empty room, everything in neat order. He crawls to the edge of the bed, and there, on the corner of his desk, the word _mistake_ is scrawled in his handwriting.

 

Arthur sleeps without the PASIV that night. He dreams about the mission. He sees Saito bleeding. He sees Eames raising a gun to Saito’s head. He sees the desperation written across Cobb’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Cobb says, but it’s not Cobb speaking.

Arthur opens his eyes. Eames stands over him. He holds the die in his hand.

“Am I dreaming?” Arthur asks.

“Nice to know I’m not the only one dreaming about it,” Eames says. He drops the die onto Arthur’s chest. Arthur goes to take it, but Eames puts a hand down, trapping the die under his palm.

“What do you see in your head? How do you keep everything compartmentalized? Because I know you do.”

Arthur glares at him. “I have an apartment.”

“Boring,” Eames says with a slight smile.

Arthur grabs Eames’s arm and twists. The man swears and slumps forward. Arthur rolls out from under his hand, hitting the floor and crouching on the other side of the bed. Arthur knows he is cornered now.

“Where to now, Arthur?” the forger asks.

Arthur grits his teeth. Eames steps around the bed, intending to bridge the gap, but Arthur makes a break for it, climbing onto the mattress. Eames grabs his ankle and Arthur falls. Eames drags him off the bed and slams his back against the wall behind them. Eames uses his bulk to hold Arthur in place.

“Do you see destruction in your dreams?” he asks, mouth against Arthur’s ear. Arthur gives one final struggle, but he can’t push him off.

“Why are you resisting me?” Eames asks. He does not let up the pressure.

“You’re the reason,” Arthur says, voice strangled. “You’re the reason I made a mistake.”

Eames finally pulls away. Arthur turns around to face him. Arthur straightens his clothes. Eames only leaves a small amount of space between them.

“You distracted me,” Arthur says. “That’s why I didn’t complete the research on Fischer. Because you were there.”

“Do you want to take it out on me?” Eames asks. “Get all your guilt out? Your anger?”

Arthur lets his breath out in a huff. “No.”

“Do you feel better now, after seeing everyone?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur says. “They weren’t the ones I needed.”

“Well I’m right here,” Eames says. He inches closer to Arthur. “What are you going to do?”

“Do I do the same to you?” Arthur asks. “Do I destroy your mind?”

Eames is still for a moment, before nodding once.

“Will it ever end?” Arthur asks.

“It can here.”

Eames grabs Arthur by the back of the neck. Arthur pushes. Eames pulls. Slowly but surely, Eames gets his way. As their faces are only an inch apart, Eames speaks with his eyes on Arthur’s mouth.

“Relax. It’s only a dream, darling.”

Arthur’s arms drops.

The unexpected lack of resistance forces Eames’s entire weight into Arthur and their mouths crush together almost painfully.

An ember, flint sparking on rock, and then a fire, hot and bright.

Arthur can barely stand.

It’s only a dream. The relief is too much: that he gets to experience what’s been haunting him ever since their first mission. When Arthur saw Eames’ skills at work. The seduction was easy for Eames, taking the form of the mark’s old lover. It planted an idea in Arthur’s mind, a seed that grasped at life over the years.

What’s the harm in indulging in a dream?

Eames’s hand knots in Arthur’s shirt at the small of his back, and Arthur arches his back. Arthur’s breath is jagged.

“I’ve never—”

“I have,” comes the quick reply.

Eames grabs at the collar of Arthur’s shirt. A button lands on the floor. The bed creaks. Arthur feels a weight lifted from his shoulders. He feels a lot of things, as Eames untangles the knots in his mind. The others disappear from his thoughts. The mission, the mistake, inception. None of it matters, not while Eames is here.

For a while, it is just the two of them, as Arthur dreamt it would be.

Eames bites Arthur’s lip.

All is forgiven.

 

Arthur can’t keep his eyes open. Eames buttons his own shirt.

“Go to sleep Arthur,” he says.

Arthur raises himself up to press his face to Eames’s neck, one more time, before the dream is over. And then he collapses, the tug of sleep too strong to resist.

 

Arthur wakes to the sound of the door. He raises himself up, only to see a figure disappearing out of the room. Arthur pulls the needle out of his arm and stumbles over the PASIV on the ground. There is another hose coiled beside it.

This is not the room he fell asleep in. He runs to the door and throws it open, but the hallway is empty. He goes to the window and pulls the curtain aside. Los Angeles stares back at him, not New York.

He never left.

He pulls the die out of his pocket and sets it on the windowsill. He rolls it once, twice, three times, and gets the same number.

Arthur climbs back into bed, lying on his side. That’s when he sees it. There on the end table. A poker chip. Arthur snatches it up and turns it over in his hands.

He can almost hear the forger’s voice in his head.

_You can borrow mine._

_For now.  
_


End file.
